After reality TV star Abby Lee Miller was paralyzed earlier this week, it has been revealed that what doctors originally believed was a spinal infection is actually a form of cancer.

The 51-year-old has been diagnosed with Burkitt lymphoma, a cancer that grows in the body’s immune system, after a near-death experience earlier this week.

Miller became ill during a stay at a halfway house, which followed her release from prison for bankruptcy fraud last month.

On Tuesday, she headed to Cedars-Sinai Marina Del Rey Hospital in California, where doctors performed emergency surgery after she suddenly became paralyzed.

Doctors thought she had a spinal infection.

“It was not an infection, it was a type of a non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma," Dr. Hooman Melamed, told People magazine Wednesday night. "We're getting an oncologist involved and we have to figure out what the next steps are as far as chemotherapy or radiation or more spine surgery."

Melamed said they have not determined the stage yet.

Doctors previously said that if Miller had not undergone the surgery, she would have died.

Burkitt’s lymphoma is known to be one of the fastest-growing tumors in humans.